Once upon a time

The concept of the City Soap Company got hatched by a couple of Vancouver guys & ...ok so I'll tell you what, this would sound much better coming from The Vancouver Sun as it was reported way back then by Patricia Bailey.The title of this story is...

Surrey Big Hair and Kits Muscleget lathered up City Soap is here to tell you that all those rumours about Vancouver being a no-fun city is just so much water down the sinkThe founders of City Soap Company were sick of reports that Vancouver was no fun. So the two West Enders-one a slightly obsessed amateur soap maker and the other an art director at Cossette Communications-decided to create a line of natural soap that pokes fun at the city. The bars gently satirize stereotypical characters from Vancouver's cityscape: the muscle men of Kits Beach; the granola Lolas strolling Commercial Drive and even the blond big-hair girls from Surrey. And the sexy black and white portrait of a man wearing lipstick and a glorious headband of plastic fruit on the package of "Fruity Beauty Bar" honours West End drag queens. "The soap line was developed as a tribute to the city." said Garnet Davis,31, as he sat in his small, bright studio on Richards Street near Gastown. Davis is City Soap's "art guy" and his business partner, Dave Johnson, 37, creates the earthy soap from vegetable oils, oatmeal, herbs and exotic roots. Davis, who studied design at Emily Carr, created the packaging, which incorporates city maps and black and white portraits by Shawn Nygren. Mary-Jo Dionne (thisisink.com) writes the labels and is responsible for witty lines like the Fruity Beauty Bar's claim that it's "fruitier than your ex-boyfriend." What started out as a hobby for Johnson-he wanted to make a soap that would relieve his dry skin-is developing into a full-blown commercial venture. About two years ago, Johnston began to give away a dark, grainy version of the soap he'd made with oatmeal. He thought it was too rough, but his friends loved it. Work soon spread and he started to get requests from strangers. The pair began to see the soap had commercial potential. Just over one year ago, after listening to yet another television report about how dull Vancouver was the Ctiy Soap Company was born: "We decided to name each soap after the qualities it shares with our conceptions of a neighborhood," Davis said. The original coarse var eventually became "East Hastings Grime Stoppers" After the City Soap Company made its debut in the VAncouver Gift Show this month, Davis and Johnston were approached by 12 stores that wanted to carry their company's soap. The company also won a prize at the show for the bsst youth entrepreneur exhibit. The pair are well-aware that soap and related oils, powders, creams and fizzy bombs are widely sold in Vancouver. But what sets their soap apart, said Johnston is that it has "attitude." "It's strong soap. It's not soft and pretty It's a real product for real people," agrees Davis emphatically. "We're living in an urban environment, so we don't want to try to make the soap look like it's made in the country." In other words, their square chunks of soap-colored deep purple, creamy salmon or red, green and orange depending on the neighborhood-will never be tastefully wrapped in corrugated cardboard and tied with straw. They are determined that City Soap bars like "Surrey Big Hair." and "Kits Beach Muscle Head" will never be prissy. And because they are scented with essential oils, nopt perfume, they will never stink, said Davis. "You know those smelly stores that claim their stuff is natural. If you can smell it from the street it's not natural." Davis said._______________________________________________________________

Davis and
Johnston began by selling their soaps at Granville Island, as their venture
grew commercially they also expanded their brand to include more soaps, a
series of Toronto special editions, USA special edition as well as a bold
coloured generic brand to fit into any city that needed to have more fun.Now let’s not forget what they did for BC with their #1 seller hemp soap!So this is how it all began...

Life got busy for the two Vancouver guys with their already successful careers.When I met Dave Johnston in 2006 he approached me to make City Soaps for them, I was excited, it was the perfect fit with my own little bath and body business, Sisters Making Scents As Sisters Making Scents celebrated its 10th birthday I bought the City Soap Company. All our soaps are
made naturally by hand, and take 4 weeks to cure on racks we neededa lot more room so we moved out to the burbs with a larger shop to grow
both brands.We have been working hard at continuing to build this wonderful brandwhich now boasts its first organic product, BC Bud Balm an all-natural organic lip balm that has been very popular. We debuted the BC Bud Bomb bath fizzy in Calgary this winter and we have had rave reviews on this new product. And so on and so on and so on....